Snokist workers, members of the Western Council of Industrial Workers (WCIW), had stood on the picket line since September 23 of last year to win their first contract. Their demands included health benefits, an end to company cutbacks, and the reinstatement of all strikers. “Everybody’s happy because we’re going inside,” Jesús Gutiérrez, a forklift driver with four years at the fruit-packing plant, told the Militant.

Winning a contract with the company was important for workers at Snokist and in Yakima because “everybody’s going to know we have rights,” Gutiérrez said. Earlier this month the regional office of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced it found evidence that the company engaged in “bad-faith bargaining” prior to the strike. On April 7 the union made an unconditional offer to return to work and the company recalled about half the local. Negotiations between the company and the union then resumed, producing the first union contract in the 102-year history of the company.

According to Rogelio Montes, WCIW organizer, half of the local’s members are now on layoff and 30 of the scabs who worked during the strike remain inside the plant. On May 5, he said, the union local filed new grievances with the NLRB charging the company with failing to implement one of the wage increases for some of the workers in maintenance and production, non-payment of shift differential pay, and awarding some job positions out of seniority.

Production and maintenance workers joined WCIW two years ago after Snokist terminated health-care benefits, fired production workers, and rehired some of them through a temporary employment agency at $2 to $3 an hour less than before.

The three-year contract the workers voted for includes an hourly wage increase of 25 cents in the first year, 50 cents per hour if employees work over 500 hours, $1 per hour if they work over 1,000 hours, a small bonus in 2006, and a cost-of-living increase in the third year, according to union officials. After 90 days on the job, all workers now join the union, eliminating the company’s practice of using temporary workers for longer jobs.

The workers held a barbecue at the picket line two days after the vote to celebrate their victory and to take down the picket tents and poles.

“We stayed united because we needed to get this contract,” said Otilio Herrera, a juice room operator, who added he thought the company was getting worried that the strike would still be going on when the cherry packing season begins in mid-July.  
 
 
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